Saifuddin hopes more industries will join 5G demonstration projects

Its minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said that so far a total of 71 5G Demonstration Projects had been successfully carried out and which would be helpful towards the government's preparation to implement the 5G technology commercially later on.

"For individual usage, we (KKMM) naturally want to optimise 4G access for now, but for industries, there is definitely a need for 5G technology," he told reporters after a working visit to Institut Teknologi Petronas (Instep) today.

Also present were MCMC chairman Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek and Petronas East Coast general manager Che Ahmad Tarmizi Abdul Rahman.

Saifuddin said that as for the oil and gas industry, only Petronas had joined the demonstration project, although his ministry believes that more companies from the industry would be keen to use the 5G technology later on.

On a separate matter, he said the government was actively evaluating the level of usage and function of the 873 Internet centres nationwide.

"This evaluation is being done because we want to see how much are these Internet centres being used and how up to date are their assets. We will see if these centres can still be used or not. We'll know the situation at the end of this year," he said.